Politics Archives

Thursday

24 Apr 2014

Dan Hodges

Meet Team Miliband

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_24_April_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Dan Hodges and Marcus Roberts debate the state of Milibandism” startat=47] Listen [/audioplayer]If the opinion polls and bookmakers are to be believed, some time during the morning of Friday 8 May next year a small group of men and women will appear out of the of the Derby Gate entrance of the old Scotland Yard building on Whitehall, stride purposefully across the road, and assemble at the gates of Downing Street. After having their names checked by the officer on duty they will continue their journey up the famous street, enter via the equally famous and rather imposing black front door, and get to work. That work will

Fraser Nelson

Old Labour, New Danger

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_24_April_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Dan Hodges and Marcus Roberts debate the state of Milibandism” startat=47] Listen [/audioplayer]A cruel new joke is doing the rounds about Ed Miliband: that the Labour leader is like a plastic bag stuck in a tree. No one is sure how he got up there, but no one can be bothered to take him down. It’s one of many unfair gags, made on the premise that he is a laughing stock and, ergo, doomed in next year’s general election. Many a Tory comforts himself with the idea that Miliband is just too implausible, too weak, too trivial a figure to make it to 10 Downing Street. Yet anyone

James Forsyth

David Cameron must tackle the optimism deficit

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_24_April_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Alex Massie explain why we need more optimism in Scotland and Westminster” startat=1538] Listen [/audioplayer]There is an optimism deficit in British politics. Politicians seem incapable of making a positive argument for anything, including the country itself. The British government’s case in the Scottish independence referendum has been almost entirely negative. Those looking for an uplifting defence of the United Kingdom have been left sorely disappointed as the government has instead stuck to technocratic arguments about why Scotland would be worse off on its own. This failure north of the border reflects a broader failure to persuade people that Britain has a bright future. Fifty four

Martin Vander Weyer

George Osborne is entitled to look smug

The popular pastime for financial commentators this season is sticking pins in George Osborne. To those on the left who hate everything about him, to those on the right who think he should have used the fiscal crisis as an opportunity to slash state spending far more than he did, to those in the middle who prefer their politicians to be vacillating blunderers blown by fate, and thereby easier targets, this Chancellor is pretty bloody irritating. The UK is expected to be the G7’s fastest-growing economy this year, and Osborne’s doubters at the IMF have had to admit, in a mealy-mouthed way, that they were wrong to try to point

Ross Clark

Investment special: Sell your Ferraris

Here is a paradox. Study the photographs of the flats and houses being sold in London’s prime property boom and you see one minimalist interior after another. The huge, empty sweeps of marble and limestone, broken only by a solitary painting, might give you the impression that it is fashionable to declutter your life. One can imagine one of those H.M. Bateman cartoons portraying the shock and horror generated by the man who placed an ornament on his mantelpiece. Why, then, if we are so keen to get rid of all the clutter, has the price of luxury goods mushroomed over the past decade? Chinese ceramics, the collectable sort, that

Wednesday

23 Apr 2014

Isabel Hardman

Michael Gove’s campaigning job

Who will go where in the forthcoming reshuffle? Guido suggests that Michael Gove could be in for a move to party chairman, given all his major reforms have either been implemented or blocked by the Lib Dems. Number 10 has certainly told Gove that he will be playing an increasing role in the general election campaign: I understand this was made clear to him in the winter of last year, which would explain why David Cameron was quite so cross about the Education Secretary’s comments to the FT about Etonians. Cameron recognises that Gove is a smooth media performer who doesn’t wilt under the heat of the studio lights, or

James Forsyth

Will the Lib Dems enter another coalition?

Danny Alexander’s comments to the BBC that, in the event of another hung parliament, the Lib Dems wouldn’t make a confidence and supply deal with either the Tories or Labour, is the clearest statement yet of the leadership’s position. The Clegg circle believes that a second term in government is crucial to consolidating the changes that he made to the party, to making the Liberal Democrats think like a party of government. Not everyone in the party is so keen on a second coalition. One influential Lib Dem MP told me a few months back that he thought a post 2015 coalition with either party would be a disaster for

Steerpike

Britain is sexier than France, says Jean Paul Gaultier

If the French are flocking to Britain, it’s not just down to a 75 per cent tax hike on the super-rich. Multi-millionaire designer, Jean Paul Gaultier comes to the UK for a different reason. “The British have a lot of connection with the sexual, which is something that I appreciate. None of this ‘No sex- we are British.’ It is more like ‘A lot of sex- we are British!’” The designer, who opened a retrospective exhibition in the Barbican this month, told Mr S that the French are “snobbish” and he comes to London to “to have fun”. “Britain represents iconoclastic creativity, individuality – things that we don’t know so

Douglas Murray

Tony Blair spoke the truth about Islamism. But not the whole truth

As so often (in my opinion) Tony Blair is almost right. In a wide-ranging speech at Bloomberg this morning he roamed over Syria, Libya, the Middle East and the West’s withdrawal of interest, let alone engagement, in the region. But it is Blair’s comments on Islam that are most interesting, are already garnering headlines and merit most attention. Referring to the problems across the Middle East he said: ‘At the root of the crisis lies a radicalised and politicised view of Islam, an ideology that distorts and warps Islam’s true message. The threat of this radical Islam is not abating. It is growing. It is spreading across the world. It is

Isabel Hardman

Can Labour really resist class war?

There’s something quite amusing about a party that majored on the number of Etonians in the Cabinet as the substantive part of its response to the Budget briefing the Independent that it won’t stoop to ‘class war’ in its 2015 election campaign. Labour, apparently, will occupy the moral high ground next year, which suggests the party will have to change its messaging quite significantly from this: ‘What do this lot now call themselves? They call themselves the workers’ party. Who is writing the manifesto for this workers’ party? We have a helpful answer from one Conservative MP: “There are six people writing the manifesto…five…went to Eton”. ‘By my count, more

Alex Massie

As the Yes side rises in the polls, Scotland prepares for a Neverendum

I suspect I might be one of the Scottish journalists Iain Martin considers keen to make a melodrama from the independence referendum. Ten weeks ago I warned in this magazine that Alex Salmond could well lead Scotland to independence. Stuff and nonsense some folk said then. Well, perhaps. But nothing that has happened since has persuaded me I was wrong. Sure, the polls still show the No side leading but the general picture is clear: the Yes side are closing the gap. Of course there’s no law demanding that current trends continue indefinitely but, nevertheless, these are nervous times for the Unionist cause. And for good reason. Consider the poster at

James Forsyth

Don’t do it Boris!

Is Boris Johnson about to announce his intention to stand at the next general election? The well-connected Jason Groves reports today that Boris will make clear his plans before the Tory conference and that his friends expect him to run for parliament but stay as Mayor of London. I think this would be a mistake for Boris, a move that would make him less likely to end up as Tory leader and Prime Minister one day. First, Boris was clear in the campaign that he wouldn’t try to return to the Commons before 2016: ‘If I am fortunate enough to win I will need four years to deliver what I

The Spectator

Full text: Tony Blair’s speech on why the Middle East matters

It is unsurprising that public opinion in the UK and elsewhere, resents the notion that we should engage with the politics of the Middle East and beyond. We have been through painful engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq. After 2008, we have had our own domestic anxieties following the financial crisis. And besides if we want to engage, people reasonably ask: where, how and to what purpose? More recently, Ukraine has served to push the Middle East to the inside pages, with the carnage of Syria featuring somewhat, but the chaos of Libya, whose Government we intervened to change, hardly meriting a mention. However the Middle East matters. What is presently

Camilla Swift

Why all the fuss about hunting? After all, it’s not a vote-loser

The last couple of months have seen a huge amount of to-and-froing over the hunting ban from David Cameron. After the Federation of Welsh Farmers Packs published research into the use of dogs to flush out foxes, which seemed to indicate that using several dogs (ie, a pack), was more efficient and, arguably, less cruel than the current legal limit of two, it looked as if he might change his tune on the issue. The PM let it be known that he was ‘sympathetic’ to the idea, and that Defra was ‘considering’ the research. In PMQs in early March, he even said that there might be a vote on the

Isabel Hardman

Alex Salmond’s reassuring St George’s Day address

St George’s Day is one of those festivals that politicians are particularly earnest about, for fear someone accuse them of being ashamed of England. But today’s most interesting pointed St George’s Day celebration comes from a man more accustomed to suggesting that Englishness is something he is quite separate from. Alex Salmond is hopping across the border to give a speech in Carlisle. The SNP leader wants to reassure English people on St George’s Day that they can still be chums with the Scots. They’re not going to become surly dragons after independence. Instead, Salmond will say Scots and English people will still cross that border to work and to

Tuesday

22 Apr 2014

Isabel Hardman

What Cameron and Osborne’s rare joint appearance tells us about their relationship

David Cameron and George Osborne managed to garner more attention for their infrastructure announcement (or re-announcement) today by organising their first joint appearance alone together in four years – and making sure the media were aware that this was the case. The pair haven’t appeared together in public for a while partly because they fear doing so would suggest to voters that the government was run by two chaps from very similar backgrounds; better to dilute it by pitching up with other ministers, hopefully with vaguely different backstories. But it is also quite impressive that the two men haven’t felt the need to do these joint appearances after questions about

Steerpike

‘I’m voting Ukip… because I work for them’

Ukip is the Common Sense party that listens to ordinary people. So says Lizzy Vaid, who appears on the party’s European elections manifesto as someone thrilled that Nigel Farage’s party is ‘listening to what people want’. She should know: although Vaid looks like she’s an ordinary voter on the street, she is in fact Nigel Farage’s assistant and Ukip’s events manager. Well, it is Common Sense to vote for the party that employs you, after all.

Ed West

The Ukip posters will offend more Londoners than eastern Europeans

Globalisation is like a rising tide; we’re all living in our separate ponds with their own little social ecosystems until the floodwater starts to rise and turns them into one big lake. Many fish, especially, the big ones, are going to benefit but many will suffer in this frightening new world. It is that fear which Ukip’s new posters are aimed at addressing (or exploiting, depending on your view). Sure, Europe is about free movement of labour, but that movement is highly imbalanced and has been for a number of years. Far more people are seeking to come from southern and eastern Europe to work in Britain than vice versa, and

Sebastian Payne

Briefing: Britain — a Christian country?

Is Britain still a Christian country? There is no straightforward answer to that question, as David Cameron discovered to his cost this weekend. The ongoing row began with an article the Prime Minister wrote for the Church Times last week, arguing that Britain should not be ashamed of its Christian ethos: ‘I believe we should be more confident about our status as a Christian country, more ambitious about expanding the role of faith-based organisations, and, frankly, more evangelical about a faith that compels us to get out there and make a difference to people’s lives’ In response to this, fifty notable public figures — from Tim Minchin to Terry Pratchett

Harry Cole

The UK is a Christian country, whether the Left like it or not

As the crucifixion of Damian McBride over Easter in 2009 proves, the four-day news void can be gruesome for Downing Street, yet it seems congratulations are in order this year. No.10 managed to throw the chattering classes such a juicy bone of distraction that they all spent Easter trying to convince themselves that the UK is not a Christian country. The row was stoked by an assorted group of lefties with impeccable Labour, Liberal and Green credentials writing to the Telegraph, questioning why a PM may possibly wish to talk about religion. The irony that it was Easter, top and tailed by two bank holidays where their entire ‘non-Christian country’